Tomorrow
by fiesa
Summary: Everyone said the Sannin had arrived just in time to save Whirlpool. The three of them knew they had come just in time to lose it. Scenes of a war. Complete in five chapters– The Founders and their Heirs. Appearances including but not limited to: Madara, Hashirama, Mito, Tsunade, Orochimaru, Jiraiya and Hiruzen. Focusses on the Founders and the Sannin.
1. heart of man

**Tomorrow**

_Summary: Everyone said the Sannin had arrived just in time to save Whirlpool. The three of them knew they had come just in time to lose it. Scenes of a war. Complete in five chapters– The Founders and their Heirs. Appearances including but not limited to: Madara, Hashirama, Mito, Tsunade, Orochimaru, Jiraiya and Hiruzen. Focusses on the Founders and the Sannin._

_Warning: Fractured. Angsty. Fractured. I was playing with a few ideas here. _

_Set: Story-unrelated. Same setting but AU (more or less. Could be more. Could be less.)_

_Disclaimer: Standards apply. Chapter titles from Robert Frost, Reluctance._

_A/N: My apologies to Tobirama. I just couldn't make him fit into the story._

* * *

_heart of man_

They get through the summer, just barely. It was the hottest summer it had been for as long as anyone could remember.

"I hate this." Orochimaru's face was hidden behind the black cloth that was Konoha's special ops mask but that served as an entirely different kind of protection these days. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead.

So many things were being used in ways they weren't meant to be these days.

"I thought you liked summer." Jiraiya didn't even pretend to joke. His mane was tied back messily, his face hidden behind the same mask. In his dark uniform, surrounded by the somewhat muted green of the forest, his hair shone like a beacon of white fire.

"It's too hot."

Tsunade could only agree.

The forest was a death trap. She'd never seen it as that until the war began: as a child she had played underneath its shadowy trees. By herself, with her grandfather, with her friends. As a genin, she had trained chakra control by walking up the trunks of the tallest trees, on which generations of genin had marked their progress with cuts that were slowly being incorporated into the tree's bark. Orochimaru, Jiraiya and she had spent many afternoons here. And then the war had come and the forest had become the best protection Hidden Leaf had: because enemies attacking the village had to cross the forest; and nobody knew it better than a Leaf shinobi.

But even underneath the protecting canopy of leaves, it was searingly hot.

Tsunade's danger sense flared. She tensed, straining her hearing and sight. Jiraiya next to her picked up on her tension and signaled Orochimaru. Invisible in the tree tops, quiet as ghosts, they waited-

A twig broke.

Orochimaru's hands blurred as he activated the genjutsu; his eyes closed, his face a mask of concentration. She didn't need to turn to know that much. Jiraiya had unrolled one of his scrolls, his fingers quickly finishing the pre-drawn seals. Tsunade felt for the wakizashi on her back and closed her eyes in a second-by-second prayer to Death. _Not today. _Jiraiya was directly behind her. When the screams started, she leapt.

It was over within minutes.

…

"Children." Senju Hashirama paced the room like a caged tree lion, his fists opening and closing helplessly. "They're _children_. Just look at them."

Uchiha Madara was a statue in the corner, his arms crossed over his chest. His face was shadowed and his features only barely visible, but the white streaks in his hair stood out starkly.

"It's war. There are no such beings as children anymore."

"That's my granddaughter out there," Hashirama flew into his face. "And my son-in-law. And your nephews and nieces and so many of your precious clansmen."

"Do you see me breaking down?" Madara asked back coolly. "Uchiha are born to fight."

"Stop bullshitting me! You know we built this village so our clans could live in peace! We didn't want this!"

"But it came onto us, and we had no choice." His friend's attitude could have been mistaken as uncaring and cold. Hashirama knew Madara better. But sometimes it was really hard to keep on believing in the human heart that beat underneath the blood-red armor, the heart that held the same dream Hashirama's did- "We built a village and promised the people to protect them. We have no choice but to go out there and do as we promised. You know that as well as I do. Or, at least your wife knew better."

"Leave Mito out of this or I swear, I will-"

"Hashirama." Madara stood, his imposing figure blocking out the light that came in through the window. "This is what you signed up for when you vowed to do everything in your power to grant your people a peaceful life. Stop whining, for Heaven's sake, and do something useful."

Hashirama clenched his teeth so hard he felt a headache coming. But he knew his friend was right.

"Fine."

Madara left without a word. On his way past Hashirama, he balled a fist and touched the Senju's shoulder. A rare gesture of affection from the man everyone nick-named the Leaf Demon.

Finally alone, Hashirama closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm getting to old for this."

Mito's laughter, in his mind, was soft and sad.

"God, I miss you."

…

Orochimaru and Jiraiya both had offered her to take her responsibility and visit Dan's family for her. Both had given her that look she had come to hate over the course of a few days already. It was pity – bad enough – but mixed with such an amount of love and understanding that she was torn between breaking down weeping and let them hold her or punch their lights out so they would never look at her like that again. She loved them – Gods knew how much, they had been by her side as long as she could remember and she never had or ever would have better friends than them. But it was _her_ who had lost a lover, not them. Tsunade knew she had to do this.

A cousin of Dan's greeted her at the door and led her into the house. Dan's family hadn't been as vast as the Uchiha Clan, but expansive no less. In the sunlit corridors that were filled with sounds – chatting from women in the kitchen, a child wailing, pots and pans clattering merrily as if life still was precious and beautiful – she felt like she was going to drown. Inside Leaf it almost felt as if the war was not taking place, as if everything outside the gates was nothing more than a bad dream. Oh, how she knew better. She also knew it wouldn't stay this way forever. The longer the war dragged out, the more the civilian inhabitants would be affected, as well. She banished the thought almost desperately.

A floor tile creaked under almost nonexistent weight.

Tsunade, battle-field hardened to react to every sound, whirled around and found herself face to face with Dan's youngest niece. The girl was sitting on the uppermost step of the staircase, half-hiding behind the banister, and was glancing down at Tsunade with an expression that made her freeze. It was as if all the hate and accusation that could exist in the world were drawn on the little girl's features. She was barely more than five and yet the blonde woman shivered. She hadn't cried – she had not cried once since Dan had died under her hands. He had smiled like the idiot he was, telling her without a word how much he loved her and how he was sure they were going to win in the end. She'd never been the idealistic one of the two of them – she was the granddaughter of Uzumaki Mito, she knew how often politics got in the way of idealism – but he had been able to make even her believe. In _something_, if not in _him_. Now Dan was gone and Shizune was glaring at her as if she had could see Dan's blood still on Tsunade's hands.

(She had spent hours of washing them, until they were raw and her skin stung, and still she could not rid herself of the feeling of _his heart stopping under her hands-)_

Shizune had every right to hate her.

Numb, Tsunade turned away and towards the room where Dan's mother was waiting.

…

Specter of the Past:

In her life, Uzumaki Mito had met three men that would change the world.

It was ironic, she thought and almost laughed. The laugh turned into a cough, a chest-wracking, painful chough that felt like her lungs were on the verge of tearing apart. It was ironic she was remembering this while she was on the verge of death, and even more so it had been ironic that three men had desired her – _desired her, desire was something else than love _– and all those three men had had the potential to create great things. She could have used that to her advantage, could have done good with it. But in the end she hadn't accomplished _anything_.

Perception. It was all a matter of perception.

Perception – and perfection. The eldest daughter of four children, Mito had always felt like she was the one that was expected to do great. She was reasonably intelligent and reasonably pretty, she had a mind for languages and politics and a hand for sealing. She liked many things – like flowers, and geography, even politics. But she never felt like she would be able to achieve something more than _average_. And while she knew that nobody expected perfection of her it still _felt_ that way. Her father, who kept on lecturing her on how she had to behave and what she had to think of. Her grandparents, who commented on her figure, her hair and her face, and her friends who laughed at her mistakes and made fun of her in a friendly way – there were barbs in each comment, sharp and painful as needles. So what if she wasn't beautiful, so what if she wasn't perfect? So what if she enjoyed reading more than going out, preferred books to people?

Ultimately nothing of that mattered, because she didn't have a choice.

Mito first met Tokugawa Ieyasu on a ball, an event meant to find a new bride for Fire's Daimyo after he had sentenced his main wife to death for treason. At least everyone knew that was the reason but nobody was stupid enough to say it out loud. Mito did not stand out next to her younger sister – Mahiro was tall, slender and beautiful – but something in her must have caught the feudal lord's attention. Maybe he was attracted by her unusual choices on conversational topics, or by her acerbic humor. Maybe it was her plainness, or even the prospect of her status as heiress to the Senju. In the end it did not matter because Imagawa Kagura was not only more beautiful but came with an entire territory to rule. He did order her to become one of his lower wives, though. So, for a time, she lived in Tokugawa Ieyasu's harem. Maybe the feudal lord favored her because she was on par with him when it came to intelligence and strategy, or maybe just because she was the only one to remain cold and distant. For all the lord's wealth and power, he fathomed himself an irresistible man, and her obvious imperviousness to his charms angered and piqued him. Mito was aware of the fact that her refusal to give in to his advances were the only thing that kept her alive but she wouldn't have been able to hold it up for much longer. Fate wanted it she fell ill after five months, unused to the continental climate and the strange food. In a fit of unusual kindness the feudal lord sent her back home, and that was the end of her life as a concubine.

Her intermezzo with the Tokugawa Clan seemed to have shown her father that Mito at least was worth _something_, because he started to take her with him when he left for diplomatic missions. It was uncommon for women to even be present on political occasions. Mito watched carefully, mostly hidden in the shadows behind her father's diplomatic advisors, and learned. Soon her father realized she had a sharp eye for details and the clear, calm mind it took to make political decisions. That was how she came to meet them. Senju Hashirama, one of the two founders of the new shinobi village of Hidden Leaf, smiled at lot – and stupidly – and had a will as iron as any man she had ever met. In public he seemed to tend to make a fool out of himself while, when it came down to politics in an enclosed room, he negotiated without a thought for the losses. He was kind – and humorous – and taught Mito there was no shame in being herself. His counterpart, Uchiha Madara, seemed his exact opposite on the outside: cold, calm and collected and without a thought for the human lives they had been entrusted. On the inside he was so much more. And it would have been so easy – it _was_ easy – to fall in love with either of them. They took her for what she was, made fun of her but never cruelly, they accepted her and worked with her. Hashirama would make stupid jokes and Madara would set him straight with a face as unmoved as a mountain and Mito wouldn't be able to help herself: she'd laugh. At the kindness she felt, the friendship in their words and the acceptance in their eyes. It was so easy to fall in love when time and circumstances were right. But fate always had found a way to mess with her.

Tokugawa Ieyasu would incite a war.

Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara would stand against him.

And Uzumaki Mito would watch from the sidelines as she always had, giving her years, her happiness, her children and her life for the man she had come to love. For the place she had lived in and come to treasure, and for everything she had helped build there. How ironic that she, who never had stood out particularly, would be the one to fight this one fight.

Senju Mito, descendant of the Uzumaki Clan, laughed on her last breath. The kyuubi's scream of fury shook the earth, but it was too late.

…

The casket of Nara Shikamoto was brought before his widow and children in all honors, as befitting the head of the Nara clan. Outside, the leaves turned red and golden as summer faded to fall.

Nara Mitsuki looked calm as she accepted the condolences offered by her husband's former team mates and best friends. Yamanaka Jojiro could barely stand. His head and left arm were completely bandaged, blood soaking through the pristine, white gauze. Akimichi Chihaya seemed to be the one actually holding him upright while big tears rolled down his face. There were no words left to say. Shikaku, Naohito and Miya clung to her, still too stunned to even cry.

"How did he die?"

Chihaya choked back a sob and wiped his eyes. "There were too many of them."

Jojiro glanced down at the children. "Mitsuki…"

Her hands came up protectively, wrapping around the little ones' shoulders. "_I_ want to know. _They_ need to know."

"It was supposed to be an ambush for their supply trains," Jojiro said, every word speaking of the strain he was under and their immeasurable grief. "They were prepared. Must have caught one of our runners. Not even Shikamoto-" His voice cracked – "Could have known. There were too many of them."

Mitsuki's hands were white. Shikaku had to be suffering under her iron grip, but he didn't complain or turn away.

"He held them back until we could retreat."

Silence hung in the air, heavy with a thousand things that would never be said. Shikamoto, Chihaya and Jojiro had been together since before Hidden Leaf had been founded. Together, they had decided to follow the Founder's dream of a village of free shinobi and a peaceful life.

"Thank you for bringing him back."

There was nothing to be brought back. MItsuki knew what most likely had happened to the remains of her husband. She did not want to think about it.

She only broke down when the mourners had left and her children were in bed. In her empty bedroom she cried and cried for her deceased husband while in the next room Shikaku laid awake, listening to his mother's mourning.

…

Whirlpool was the opposite of Leaf.

The sea instead of the forest, sand instead of earth and stone houses instead of wooden ones. Otherwise it was the same as any other village they had traveled through: streets, houses, animals and people.

The streets were covered in ashes.

The houses had been reduced to rubble.

Animals were screaming in the throes of death.

And the people…

The people were dead or dying, wounded or delirious. It was a scene from their worst nightmares.

"Don't hurt her! Don't hurt her!" The boy – barely in his seventh year – didn't even reach up to Jiraiya's hip and yet he was trying to cover the woman behind him with his body. The old lady was coughing weakly. A trickle of blood ran down her chin. It was too late for her and yet Tsunade crouched down at her side, lifting her hands that were crackling with ice-blue chakra. As always, even months after the loss, Dan's image hovered over the woman, smiling on his last breath.

"It will be alright," she whispered tonelessly as she took away the woman's pain.

Then she stood again. Orochimaru, Jiraiya and her shared a look and spread out without another word.

Uzushiogakure was razed that day. Its inhabitants were killed or raped and taken as slaves by pirates and the troupes of the alliance of feudal lords. The fire was hot enough to melt the stone the houses had been built with. It was the greatest genocide in the memory of the Country of Fire.

The only thought that ran through Senju Tsunade's head was that she was glad her grandmother hadn't lived to see her beloved home in ashes.

When Tsunade, Jiraiya and Orochimaru arrived, pirates, slavers, soldiers and mercenaries were still pillaging the village. The feudal lord's troupes had some seventy men on their side, they were only three. What happened that night was the beginning of a legend.

Or rather: three legends.

…

"It will be alright, love."

The voice whispered in her fever-strewn dreams, soft like a summer breeze. The hand on Tsunade's forehead was cool and gentle.

"You'll be better soon."

Restless, she turned, barely conscious. Shadows were chasing her, their claws stretched out for her, threatening and scary. Their screeching voices made her skin crawl and she shivered, compulsively. They were coming for her. Their glowing eyes came closer and closer, drawing her into the icy heat of their darkness. There was no place to escape these nightmares, no one who would save her from the darkness that were her deepest fears-

"I'm here, Tsunade. Everything will be alright. Tomorrow. You'll see."

Under her grandmother's gentle whispers and the cool touch, she relaxed.

She woke up the next morning and could not remember her dream, but her pillow was wet and there were dried tear-tracks on her face. If she had woken Jiraiya and Orochimaru at night none of them mentioned anything, their unusual tact almost a sure sign that they _had_ heard her. Tsunade was almost beyond caring, but it was nice to know they did.

The ghost of the touch of that cool hand followed her through the day.

One year and seventy eight days into the war.


	2. unravel them one by one

_unravel them one by one_

And that was the beginning of the beginning:

Once upon a time there were two clans that were the strongest shinobi clans that existed on all five continents. Nobody could stand against them. When wars broke out and one feudal lord employed the one clan, immediately the other party would hire the other clan because there was no chance to stand against either one of them without the help of the other. Thus, the two clans were constantly warring, every defeat resulting in a seething, cold hate for the other, every victory adding to the fuel of loathing and abhorrence. Every fight resulting in death, every death resulting in hate and hate only turning to more fight. It was into the time of the Age of the Warring Clans that two children were born who knew nothing but the fire of war and the coldness of hate but who learned to see beyond it. One by self-reflection, one by necessity, they realized that there was only one way to stop the eternal cycle of hate: they would have to cooperate. They shared the same dream. They were similar at heart so they stood up and rose against their own clans together and after pain and loss and bloodshed they gained power over their own. Then, they set off to fulfil their dream: Their dream of building a place in which both clans could be at peace. A place in which they could put aside their weapons and work for the good of everyone. Swords were laid aside and sickles and axes were used to clear a place for a settlement. Houses were built. Fields were cultivated. Soon a village began to thrive and because it was hidden from the world behind a thick curtain of forest they called it the Village Hidden Behind the Leaves. As years passed, the village grew. People from the surrounding communities joined the village and added their wealth, their knowledge and their hopes and dreams to it. Those were good times: times of peace and growth. One of the Founders married a foreign princess and protected the village by forging an alliance with a powerful clan. The other Founder worked from the shadows and protected the village from the dangers of the night. And children were born to those who had been children at the time the Upraising had found place, and they, in return, bore children, and the Fates seemed to smile on the village.

And they lived-

…

The little girl had half of her head bandaged by gauze pads and yet she stared at Orochimaru as he passed her in what passed as field hospital these days. She had yet-black hair, just like him. Maybe that was the reason he stopped.

"You're one of the Sannin."

Oh, how he hated the title. The three of them had barely seen seventeen summers and already they had gained a reputation. He wasn't sure whether it was because he was an Uchiha and Tsunade was a Senju and they were measured up against their family's heritage or because they just were who they were: the Sannin, the Great Three, heirs to Leaf's traditions. He preferred to believe the latter, also because Jiraiya would suddenly become all quiet and withdrawn when someone had the guts to compare them to their ancestors. Either way, the moment they had made it back from their mission to Whirlpool they had been called the_ Sannin_, and Orochimaru hated the title with the same passion his two teammates hated it.

"Yes."

The little girl blinked. She seemed disoriented due to the fact that one of her eyes was covered.

"I want to be like you, one day."

Orochimaru laughed. He couldn't help himself. He wasn't good with children, especially not with children who had a hero's complex.

"I pray you won't be."

Surprisingly, the girl didn't start crying or ran off. Instead, she looked at him, half-knowing, half-innocent, and suddenly he couldn't stand her sight.

"What's your name, kid?"

She gazed up at him, unafraid. "Anko."

…

And that was the beginning of the end:

But wealth and happiness calls forth envy and fear. As the feudal lords of the five surrounding countries, who had been looking onto the prospering village with jealousy and mistrust, saw how former enemies were living side by side, they began to fear the combined clans' power. Whispers arose: What it the two clans thirsted for more? More land, more wealth, more power? What if they decided to unite against the feudal lord's power? The two clans always had been powerful but they had kept each other at bay. Now united, there was nothing that could stand in their way should they decide to reach out for the feudal lords' power and land. So the daimyos made a pact: they would lead an army against the two clans, an army made up of all the lords' men. Together, they would easily conquer the village and destroy it. Then, the threat the two clans had always posed would be eliminated once and for all. The lords vowed to kill every last shinobi and every man, woman and child that carried one of the two clan's bloodlines, for people with that much power couldn't be allowed to live. They marched off on a bright spring day, flying banners and armors and swords glinting in the sun, and many minor shinobi clans who wanted to see their old enemies dead marched with them. They came to the forest that surrounded the village, and, after negotiations, sent a delegation of men into the forest. They relayed the news to the two Heads of the Village, the Founders who were known as Fire and Shadow, and demanded complete surrender.

Upon listening to the feudal lords' demand, and understanding that every human being in the village was to walk freely as long as every member of the two clans and the clans that had joined them were to die, Fire and Shadow were quiet for a long, long time. When they offered their own lives in exchange for their peoples' lives, they were denied and mocked. When they offered the people of the village to leave them and flee, though, the people refused. The Founders had been good to them, had helped them settle and had worked side by side in the fields and woods with them. Nobody wanted to leave. So the Founders conveyed their decision to the lords, and the war began.

The treaty the feudal lords had forged later would be known as The Great Treason, and the war would enter the history books as The Dark Time. The name of the two clans was Senju and Uchiha.

…

They burned the dead by nightfall.

There was nothing romantic about a pyre, or even mysterious. It was the opposite: a bizarre unraveling of life, a bright, hot fire that was difficult to breathe in. The scent of burnt human flesh hung in the air, along with ashes and heat like the Uchiha's fire jutsu. There was no cease-fire and no mutual silent agreement. Just the desperate up-rearing of people who were weary of a fight they had not started and could not end, despairing anger and hate mixing with grief as dark as moonless nights. None of the people present were innocent, but none of them were guilty, either. The world did not care. The hot night mixed with the fire's heat and stench.

Somewhere in the darkness a person vomited, the sound of choking and retching echoing through the still darkness that was only broken by the sizzle and crackle of the fire.

Outside the ring of fire, winter gave way to spring but the scent was one of death, not life.

…

_Happily ever after and…_

_…_

Perhaps the first casualty was Senju, or _Uzumaki,_ Mito. It was a loss both shattering and quiet that went by almost unnoticed.

The daughter of Whirlpool who had come to forge an alliance between the new shinobi village and the old, small village of Uzushio had been a mother to the entire village. The title Founders had stretched to encompass all three of them but when the people talked about her, especially, she had always and only been called Lady.

Nobody knew much about her except for what everyone knew.

She hailed from the Uzumaki clan, only daughter of the acting clan head. She had come to Hidden Leaf to marry Senju Hashirama. She had born the village a daughter and had died fighting the kyuubi. Her anger, they said, had illuminated the Valley of the End for four days straight, but in the end the monster The Tairo had invoked had been banned. Trapped by the Senju, fought by the Uchiha, sealed by the Uzumaki. The Founders. Three clans. One village.

Senju Mito had looked in death as she had in life: cool, collected and unreachable. She took every single one of her secrets to her grave.

…

The sun beat down viciously. Their only solace was, Jiraiya thought, that the enemy was suffering as much as they were. Probably even less, because they had mercenaries from Wind who were used to this kind of god-forsaken heat. The bridge across the greater brother of the Nakano was the only way to cross the river in spring and fall, when the winter glaciers high up in the mountains melted in the first spring sun. In summer, though, it was a calm river. The oppressing heat had tamed it even more.

In another time – another season – Hidden Leaf would have used the bridge to ambush the enemy.

This time there was no such possibility. The enemy was crossing Leaf's natural defensive line at multiple places at once. There was no way to stop them all and the fact that Tsunade, Jiraiya, Orochimaru and their little corps of shinobi ran into a small enemy troupe was entirely by chance. But then, it felt like pretty much every major fight in this war had happened by chance.

First, they picked the enemy out while they were crossing the river. They were helpless in the water, like sitting ducks. The hailstorm of kunai unleashed made many of the Five Lords' soldiers die immediately or injured them and drowned them. The ones that made it out of the river were immediately engaged. There had been no time to set up a proper genjutsu. Their hands and their weapons were all they had.

No. They had more. The Leaf shinobi were fighting for their homes. The enemy army was fighting for five feudal lords.

A Wind shinobi unleashed a storm of sand. It cut through skin and bone like tiny needles, leaving clean bones in its wake. The Earth shinobi tore open the ground, killing five Leaf nin when they were crushed in the rapidly closing ravine. Thunder shinobi and Water shinobi combined their attacks, water bombs exploding with an earth-shaking sound that seemed to suck all oxygen from the air. Two shinobi closest to them collapsed, bleeding from ears and noses. At the end, half of their troupe was dead and two-thirds of the surviving severely wounded, but they had won. There was no satisfaction, not even relief. Halfway back to the village runners overtook them with the newest estimations from the front lines: The enemy had managed to break through at eight positions. Again, the front line shifted, suddenly being closer to Leaf than ever before.

Tsunade stretched out her hands, touching Jiraiya with one and Orochimaru with the other. They gave her their own chakra readily. When Tsunade's reserves at least weren't completely empty any longer and Orochimaru's and Jiraiya's injuries looked like they already were two days old, they set off again.

…

There was a memory buried somewhere in his heart.

_I'm sorry. –I am, too._

Hashirama couldn't remember what they had been talking about. Conversations with her had been tedious, on some days, and they had spent weeks without talking to each other. They were two people who had been thrown together by chance and had consoled themselves to whatever little they had in common. It wasn't as if he'd been unhappy. Uzumaki Mito had been an intelligent woman, a strong ally and a good wife and mother. In another life, he might have fallen in love with her.

Once he heard her weeping in the darkness of their shared bed but he had lain still and unmoving, pretending to be asleep. Mito was strong – she wouldn't want him to witness her weakness. But there had been a tiny voice in his mind that whispered that maybe she wanted him to console her. It did not matter, anyway: he had ignored it then, and it was too late for regrets.

_Don't fool yourself, Hashirama. Regrets are the only thing you have left._

…

"Don't call me Hime," Tsunade snarled viciously.

Jiraiya lifted both his hands in a placating gesture. "What I wanted to say was…"

"I don't care." Her blue eyes were glaciers. "I said, _Don't call me that._"

Orochimaru's face didn't move a muscle. "The people gave you that title, not Jiraiya."

"If you call me like that one more time, I will see to it that you die slowly and in agonizing pain."

Tsunade was even scarier when she was calm instead of fiery, and wisely, both her team mates decided not to challenge her further.

…

"Old friend." Hashirama greeted Hiruzen when the younger man stepped through the door. It was a private joke, the name, seeing as Hiruzen was almost half Hashirama's age. "How are you?"

A futile question, both of them knew. The younger jounin collapsed on the armchair that stood facing the large desk.

"What are we doing, Hi-Sama?"

Sighing, Hashirama dropped down in the other chair. "Does anyone know what we're doing?"

"Probably not."

For a while, both men stared at nothing, their thoughts accumulating around them like clouds in the night.

"How are your former students?" Hashirama's question managed to make Hiruzen smile.

"Tsunade's alive, but you know that much. She's strong. And she has Orochimaru and Jiraiya."

"A Senju and an Uchiha, huh." Hashirama shook his head. "Talk about fate." Then, his gaze sharpened. "About Jiraiya…"

"No." Hiruzen lifted his hand in a forestalling gesture. "I won't listen to this any longer. Jiraiya is nothing like his parents were. He has proven his loyalty to Leaf over and over again. He is beyond every shadow of doubt."

"He's loyal to Tsunade, you mean," Hashirama corrected gently. "Only he himself can say where his loyalties lay when it comes to the village."

"I won't listen to you anymore." Hiruzen stood and turned to the door. "I told you when I started training them years ago, when he made chuunin and even when you promoted him to jounin. Jiraiya is a Leaf shinobi with every fiber of his heart. As a matter of fact I don't know why you of all would harbor such continuing reservations against anyone, much less against Jiraiya."

"I'm sorry, old friend," Hashirama said, but Hiruzen had already left the room.

…

_Fire, Shadow and Heart._

…

Sometimes Orochimaru felt like laughing when he watched their lives unfold, especially when watching Tsunade.

He had long ago accepted the fact that she would never look at him. Why would she? He was an Uchiha, but that didn't make him special. In fact, he was just one of many. Orochimaru merely had had the luck – or misfortune, depending – to be of the same age as the granddaughter of one of the Founders – and therefore had attended Academy at the same time. They had been put on the same team. Tsunade was the loud-mouth, Jiraiya was the idiot and Orochimaru was the calm one, and all of them were geniuses in their own right but that didn't give anyone the right to call them Sannin. They did, nevertheless. Perhaps, he sometimes thought, it had been as unavoidable as his feelings for her had been. In the long run it did not matter, because she never once looked at him like he wanted her to.

There were disadvantages in sharing everything in the way they did.

Tsunade's first kiss was with a chuunin called Who-the-fuck-cared, around her fifteenth birthday. Her first boyfriend was Dan, Dan-whose-name-Orochimaru-remembered because Dan was responsible for a lot of their pain. Dan-whom-Tsunade-loved-like-he-was-the-only-one, Dan-who-was-stupid-and-intelligent-and-had-a-real-chance -becoming-something-one-day. Dan, the blond, tall guy who was nice to the point that even Orochimaru couldn't find a fault in him (except for his niceness, of course) and funny enough he could make Tsunade laugh (not a small task, she tended to punch whose ever jokes she could not understand) and who had just the _sprinkle_ of perverseness that was necessary to get along with Jiraiya. Dan whom Tsunade met when they were sixteen, with whom she went out for two years and came close to marrying. And all the while – despite her appearance of flattery – she did not look at any other man, and that was everything Orochimaru needed to know.

God, they had been so young.

That was the problem, perhaps. They were shinobi: they fell in love early and married early, had children early and died early. And for what? Dan died on day thirty three of the war. Tsunade never mentioned him again.

It wasn't as if Orochimaru loved her. Knowing her as well as he did, he knew she wouldn't fall in love with him. Jiraiya looked at her the same way he caught himself looking at her, sometimes. And it was perhaps the greatest tragedy of all tragedies that had brought them together in the first place.

"Don't give away your heart to someone you can't have," his uncle had told him. Orochimaru wasn't stupid; he knew whom they were talking about.

Senju Hashirama's voice was clear and strong. "Always protect what is worth protecting to you."

"Love in a way that will change your life," Senju Mito whispered on the wind.

Orochimaru smiled as he remembered and quickly schooled his expression back into his trademark stoic one when he felt Tsunade's and Orochimaru's gazes on him. There was sadness in Tsunade's eyes, grief so deep he sometimes felt like drowning in it. And surrender in Jiraiya's, like he had already given up on everything. _Don't stay sad_, he wanted to tell her. _One day, you'll find happiness again. _It seemed difficult in the midst of a war but he would do whatever was necessary to see her smile again one day. _Don't give up, Jiraiya. _It was harder, cheering him on. _We still have to discuss this. _It wouldn't be enough to fool them but for now, they had other things to worry about.

"Are you making fun of us?" Jiraiya asked, his voice barely a whisper. "Don't smile like that, stupid idiot. Just focus on getting better."

Tsunade collapsed next to him, drained from the healing procedure but visibly relieved. "He'll make it."

"The two of you, sleep," Jiraiya commanded and settled down next to them. "I'll keep watch."

Before Orochimaru fell asleep, he caught the glance Jiraiya gave Tsunade and him, and thought what an utter idiot Jiraiya was to put himself second everywhere and for Tsunade to always give everything when it came to saving everyone. One day it would kill her, as it would kill Jiraiya to sit back and watch everyone find happiness except for himself.

One year and two hundred twelve days into the war.


	3. when others are sleeping

_A/N: I sincerely apologize for the delay!_

* * *

_when others are sleeping_

"No." Reika was a strong woman, and a shinobi. It was expected from her, being the daughter of Senju Hashirama and Uzumaki Mito. But for the first time in her life Hashirama could see fear in her eyes.

"No, father. You can't do that. I beg you. They are the village's future."

The village outside was changing from summer to fall.

"They are the best soldiers I have," Hashirama answered heavily.

"They're not _soldiers_," his daughter protested violently. "They're barely _adults_. They may have made a name for themselves in this godforsaken war, but this is a suicide mission-"

Unflinching: "They stand the greatest chance of survival."

"You are making a mistake." Her gaze was uncharacteristically cold, her grey eyes – her mother's inheritance – freezing. When it came to it Reika was more like him than like Mito but now she reminded him so much of her mother that it hurt almost physically. "You are throwing away this villages' best chance of survival."

And then she left the room without looking back.

…

Jiraiya managed to proposition her five times in two hours but Tsunade doubted he even noticed it or even meant to do so. It had become a game between the two of them: he would flirt with her openly, thus giving her the opportunity to reject him just as publicly. She wasn't quite sure why they still were playing. They had started long before Dan, so far back she could barely remember, but Jiraiya had stopped immediately when he had seen her and Dan together. Sometimes she wondered what it meant, the fact that he never again had even looked at her twice. Dan had always said – but Dan was dead, _Dan was dead_ and there was nothing in the world that would bring him back. She would spend the rest of her life wondering how it would have been with him: living with him, being with him, waiting for him to return home. Bearing his children, one day. Living with him and growing old and eventually-

She threw back her sake and slammed the cup onto the counter, roughly demanding for more.

Despite being able to hold her liquor well she had reached the place of dim numbness and who-the-hell-cared. Judging from the speed with which Jiraiya and Orochimaru had started off, they had to be far ahead of her. Staring into her now-filled sake cup, she thought of nothing.

_Leave_, they called it, but it was really only a short respite in between the fights. Shinobi were on rotation and allowed to return to the village for a short time every few weeks. Tsunade had visited her mother and brother, Orochimaru had reported to his clan head, and Jiraiya… Well, probably he'd spied on the women bathing in the springs. Why he did it was beyond Tsunade, probably only to piss _her_ off. He wasn't even especially sexist.

Well, at least not as long as he was sober.

"Fucking orphanage," Jiraiya mumbled, revealing exactly where he had went on his short free-time. "Fuck the war, fuck the Tairos, fuck fucking _fate_." And Tsunade pretended to be to inebriated to have heard him. Or to remember later: how hopeless his voice had sounded, and how empty his eyes had been. How his hands had gripped the glass so hard she'd been afraid it would crack.

…

_Forever._

…

Hatake Sakumo was fourteen and had a kill list that was as long as Jiraiya's crush on the Lady had been when he'd been the same age.

(His crush hadn't lasted long but still. Senju Mito had been beautiful.)

"Do you think it will be over one day?" The white-haired runt – hadn't Jiraiya known the kid's father, he'd wondered whether the kid's hair had turned white due to the circumstances – balanced another kunai on a stack of already precariously tilting knives and skidded backwards carefully, mindful not to disrupt the balance.

Jiraiya looked up from the notepad he was staring at. Thinking was so much easier than writing, but writing was what kept him sane. "This?"

"The War."

Sakumo, Jiraiya thought, was a much braver man than him: at least he had the guts to voice the obvious, even though it hurt.

"I don't know," he replied, slowly. "It doesn't feel like it."

"I don't want my children to grow up in a war," the kid said, matter-of-factly. "I want more for them."

"You're fourteen," Jiraiya said, frowning. "You…"

_You could die any day._

He didn't say it out loud. Sakumo was a _child_-

"There will be more." The kid didn't look at Jiraiya but at the sky, squinting into the glaring sun. "There will be more than fighting and killing. I know it."

…

At the end of the fight, they were the only shinobi standing.

Panting, Orochimaru slid down from his snake's back. Jiraiya followed, both their summons disappearing with a poof. Tsunade staggered off Katsuyu and almost fell into their arms.

The ground was slippery with blood.

"Home," she whispered as she stood. "Let's go home."

They flanked her, quiet and so _there_, just as they'd always been, as she assembled the survivors.

"Are we safe?" They heard a little girl ask, still sobbing into her mother's skirt.

The woman was bleeding from a gash in her head. "Yes, love," she said. In the silence, only the hiss of fire slowly dying down was heard. Her voice cut through the dim light of a new morning. "We will be safe, now. Leaf has come to save us."

A thunder clap rolled and the sky opened its gates.

One year and sixty-eight days since the war had started, Uzushiogakure did not exist anymore and the world would never be the same again.

…

Shadows, Madara sometimes thought, had a long reach. And a long memory.

_Why did you marry him_, he had asked her. _There's nothing to gain from this alliance._

_He will bring change, _her answer had been. _And besides, it was my duty as daughter of Whirlpool._

He never asked her _Are you happy? _He never tried to lure her into his bed. Uzumaki Mito had married Senju Hashirama upon request of her father and had born him a daughter. She had helped protect her husband's village and when she had seen the time fit she had sacrificed herself for her it.

He should have asked her, he thought. Had she ever found what she had been looking for in Hidden Leaf? Had she ever found something akin to happiness?

…

"It's just a pitiful village," Ukita Hideie, Earth's Daimyo, said condescendingly as he regarded his finger nails.

"Don't underestimate the Founders," Tokugawa Ieyasu, the feudal lord of the Country of Fire, warned. "The Senju and the Uchiha were powerful already before they united."

"The Uzumaki will help them. Their leader's daughter married the Senju." Maeda Toshiie was infamous for his cunning plots. The Daimyo of Water never fought openly if he had to, his position was proof enough of his capabilities.

Uesugi Kagekatsu shook his head. As Daimyo of Thunder, his caution was strange for a man who had gathered a reputation for his volatile temper. "Will they really be as much a threat as you suspect? It might be wiser to wait and watch before acting."

"Wind stands behind you." Môri Terumoto, Daimyo of the Country of Wind, did not say anything else.

Nothing else needed to be said.

…

Tsunade's arms were bloody up to her shoulders. Blue chakra pooled from her hands, shone from her eyes.

A goddess-

"You're not going to die on me," she grunted, her right hand reaching for bandages as her left hand continued to pour chakra into the shinobi's open wounds. "You. Are. Not. Going. To. Die. Today."

It sounded like a prayer but Jiraiya knew her long enough to know it was a threat.

"There are more," was the only thing he said. Then he turned around and left, continuing the gruesome duty of collecting the wounded and checking on the enemies. Save friends, kill foes. A double-edged blade. How ironic that he was the one of the three of them-

When he returned a few hours later Tsunade was still covered in blood, Orochimaru still had the well-known, vacant expression in his eyes and Jiraiya still was Jiraiya, and they knew-

…

"I don't want Daddy to say bye."

Kurenai only had an abstract idea where her father was going – _out to work, far away, to a dangerous place_ – but she knew in order to leave he had to say good bye first. And it was the part she hated most. She had said good bye to Mommy some time ago and she had never returned.

"Sweetheart," her Daddy said and knelt down on the ground in front of her. When he did that, their eyes were at the same height. Kurenai clutched her pillow closer to her body. "It will be fine. I will be back when you wake up in the morning. Grandma and Grandpa will be here tonight." His gaze turned serious, as it always did when he was trying to explain something very important to her. Kurenai knew this gaze. "But I have to go now. It is important. Do you understand? The Founders rely on me. They need my powers to protect the village, so you can sleep in peace. Do you understand, love? I don't want you to say you understand something you don't."

Kurenai nodded without looking at him. Something brushed her head – Daddy, kissing her hair, his stubble rough against her sensitive skin.

"I understand. I love you, Daddy," she said and felt him smile.

"I love you too, Kurenai."

And then he was gone.

…

"Today's the Day of Spirits," Jiraiya muttered over their hasty dinner of ration bars and soldier pills.

"Today's full moon," Orochimaru added, matter of fact. "There will be attacks."

"Today's your birthday." Tsunade managed a smile. "Congrats, Orochimaru."

…

Nawaki was so small – and already so energetic. "I want to fight, too! Not tomorrow but right now!"

"But you're only five," Tsunade said, trying to quench both panic and relief, and ruffled his hair. "You're not old enough yet."

_And besides, I'm terrified of seeing you on the battle fields and I pray every day and every night to every god that might listen that you never, ever will have to grow up to see the horrors of these wars, the things mankind is capable of, I don't want to lose you just like I've lost Dan because you're so much like him, so much so much so much-_

"You know what? Tomorrow, I'll take you to the training grounds and you can watch Orochimaru and Jiraiya spar."

Nawaki's disappointed face turned into a smile of delight. "Awesome!" He loved Orochimaru and Jiraiya, almost worshipped them. Sometimes she felt almost jealous of her partners. Because they were men Nawaki could relate to them in an entirely different way than he related to her. And besides, it did not matter whether he went to what was left of the Academy and its lessons or watched them spar on the training grounds. Whatever they did, learned and taught lead to children being sent out into the war and there was nothing that scared her more than the thought of the people she loved injured or dying. It was bad enough with Dan, or Orochimaru and Jiraiya-

_Don't go there. _

He still was only five, Tsunade thought, desperate.

…

_Flash forward to the breaking point._

_"No."_

_"Yes."_

_"You _can't_."_

_"But I _will_."_

_"For once, I agree with Jiraiya. This is insane, Tsunade."_

_Her eyes in her face were pools of both determination and desperation. "It's the only chance left."_

_"A year, Tsunade, it will take at least seven months-"_

_"Then so be it."_

_"Why," Jiraiya asked Orochimaru later, "Why?" There were no words to properly voice the thoughts running through their heads. _

_Orochimaru's shoulders were slumped in defeat. "Because."_

…

"What are you doing, idiot?"

"What does it look like?" Jiraiya shot back without sparing him a glance. "I'm writing."

Orochimaru frowned. "Paper's not exactly easy to come by on the battle field."

"I don't care."

For a while, only the sound of the quill on parchment was to be heard. Tsunade woke up for a few seconds, her eyes almost colorless, but maybe he was imagining things. She had drained her chakra hours before and needed to rest. When she saw Jiraiya and Orochimaru, the corners of her lips tugged and she closed her eyes again.

"You're an idiot," Orochimaru said, finally.

Jiraiya merely shrugged, not looking up from the parchment. "Whatever you say."

…

"Each team a medic," Madara read from the scroll. His eyes had become bad; he had to squint at the page in order to see the letters clearly. The hand-writing was painfully familiar.

"My granddaughter came up with an impossible scheme."

"What do you know about impossible," Madara returned. Hashirama pushed his glasses higher up his nose. Apparently, he wasn't so vain as to refuse the aid of something that basic. Madara did refuse, for the simple sake of refusing. Or, maybe, he could hear Mito's acerbic and accurate guess, he just wanted to keep up the pretense that he was better than Hashirama in every way possible.

Oh, he missed the woman. She'd always been a splendid partner for verbal sparring matches.

"Don't tell me you're actually considering it." Hashirama stared at him: not incredulous, not judging. Just waiting for Madara's honest opinion. "You know as well as I do what has brought forth her request."

"I am. And Katou Dan's death was a loss in more than one way. But I agree with you, too. Right now we don't even have enough experienced shinobi to place one at the head of each squadron. We don't have enough medics, either, to send them wandering the countryside. But we should keep her request in mind."

"That's what I was going to do anyway," Hashirama grumbled. Then, sighing, he leaned back. "You know what brought forth her proposal?"

"As a matter of fact, I do."

Hashirama frowned, concerned. "What?"

"Ask her yourself."

How ironic, Hashirama thought, that Madara would know his granddaughter's heart.

...

Tsunade was already asleep, dead out on the ground of their shelter, her blond hair fanned out underneath her head. It was a tangled mess, the same as Jiraiya's white mane or Orochimaru's own black tresses. Without a sound, Jiraiya collapsed next to Tsunade, not even pausing to take off his shoes. The silence with which he surrendered was straining, a mental sound like fingernails on a chalk board. Orochimaru hadn't been used to this before the war: a still Tsunade, a Jiraiya who didn't smile.

Frozen, Orochimaru stared down on his two team mates. Their hair mingled on the thin mattresses on the ground. Tsunade's hand moved, maybe she was asleep, maybe she wasn't, but she didn't say a word as she caught Jiraiya's and pulled it close to her. Without opening her eyes, she then reached up and tugged Orochimaru down by his sleeves.

Orochimaru surrendered.

_Insane, pure insanity-_

…

Jiraiya was an idiot, because he believed his poems and stories would be able to counter the horrors of the war. Tsunade should have told him he had been right, but she never got to it.

…

One of the last conversations she had with Hashirama wasn't about their life.

Mito had never liked to talk about things that could not change and wouldn't. Mahiro had always told her she would pay for it one day and she probably already had. But living with a man who valued your intellect and personality was not the same as living with a man who loved you for everything you were, and she knew it. Mito also knew it wouldn't change. In the beginning she had wished she could fall in love with him: _He is a good man. I will learn to love him. _She had told her mother and father so and she had been right. Mito hadn't counted on the opposite, naïve and childish as she had been. How could she have? Human hearts could not be swayed. Every Sealing Master learned it, every child in Uzushio. Seals could change the weather, seals could change a person's appearance, but seals could not change a heart. Senju Hashirama was kind and gentle. He was a good man, an exceptional leader and a devoted husband. But he did not love her. Sometimes she wondered why. Was there someone else? She had watched him, but never noticed anything. It was just the way he was, she guessed: able to love everything and anyone, but not one person unconditionally. She could have married a worse man, and her child could have a worse father.

"They are blades," she said. "Double-edged and sharper than anything."

"Do you really feel that way?" Hashirama asked, his gaze intense. He was like that: sharp and committed to everything he did, even to their night-time discussions.

"Why should I feel different than you? Because I am a woman?"

"I would have thought women felt more protective towards the children they carry in their wombs for nine months."

Was he saying she was a bad mother, or just a bad woman?

"Don't get me wrong," she said and fought down the urge to flare up into his face. Oh, her temper. How long had it taken to learn to control it, and how much did she fight it even now. "I love Reika. I am terrified, knowing what could happen to her, terrified of losing her. I can understand the pain and fear of every woman who bears children knowing they will have to face the danger out there. But I see it, too."

"See what?"

"They are blades. Your will, yours and Madara's, carved into a sword. Every generation, it becomes sharper and sharper. And a sword that is not used to fight – what worth does it have?"

"You sound like you think this war will never end."

"Oh, but how I pray I am wrong. If I could give my life to make it stop, I would."

Hashirama wasn't a cruel man. But she heard the unspoken words, the silent whisper. _Maybe you already had your chance._ Maybe they were Hashirama's thoughts, maybe her own guilt torturing her.

"I know you would."

His voice was gentle. _Not a cruel man._ She could have married worse. Mito turned around and left the room. She knew Hashirama would come to her room that night – his wordless way of asking her whether she was alright, and begging for forgiveness just in the case she felt like he had reason to beg for it. But it wasn't his apologies she wanted, and both of them knew.

…

The air was icy and frigid, several layers of clothing not enough to protect them from the cruel wind. Their breath coalesced in the snow-ladden air and Tsunade couldn't breathe. In the distance, the dark outlines of the trees seemed to watch them, still, threatening guardians in a winter-forgotten world.

In the open plains between Wind and Fire, every flickering light would have caught the enemies' attention. They were far from home, darkness increasing the sense of fear and watchfulness to a degree that was physically painful. And still, Tsunade knew they weren't in immediate danger here. Danger came with the coming of spring, when Leaf's resources would start running low and warmer temperatures would allow the enemy to continue the war. Danger waited under the trees, Leaf's enemies slowly adapting to their target's guerilla tactics. Danger loomed beyond this place: a winter world that would swallow every careless wanderer who dared to defy the elements.

Tsunade was cold, desperate, tired and exhausted to a point that she was wide awake.

The icy peacefulness of the night around them was a lie. Peace was a lie, safety was a lie: she had learned so very early. Tsunade had no idea when – or where – she had lost her innocence. Maybe she had never possessed it in the first place. But she also could not remember when she had lost _herself. _

"Hime." Jiraiya whispered, his hands roaming up and down her body, hot on her skin. "Hime." His lips joined his prayer, fervently, drawing patterns on her skin, kissing her shoulder blades, inhaling her scent. His breath danced over her skin in cool gusts of air. How in the name of everything that was holy had this happened?

_Hime. _

Tsunade closed her eyes and stopped thinking.

Two years and hundred forty eight days into the war.


	4. yield with a grace

_yield with a grace_

Madara was a shadow in the darkness of the room, still as a statue.

As if he belonged into the office like a piece of lifeless furniture.

When Hashirama's trembling fingers found the light switch and hit it the room erupted into brightness, making both of them blink to get used to it. They stood at the opposite ends of the room, silently looking at each other, and for the first time in his life Hashirama thought he saw something like desperation in Madara's eyes. They had been fighting for their entire lives before they had founded Hidden Leaf. War was no stranger. What was alien was the feeling of having a _place_ to protect, and something _worth it._ Fire and Shadow. Hashirama had no idea who had come up with that title for them, but it was accurate.

Finally, he broke the silence. "This could be it."

Madara nodded. "Their morale is weakened. Two years of battle have taken their toll on the Tairo's mercenaries and samurai, as well. Rumors say Fire's Daimyo is occupied otherwise. And face it, every single one of the Tairos would gladly stab one another in the back if it meant more power for themselves."

The Senju shook his head, disbelieving and tired. "It can't be that simple."

"Why not?" His fellow leader shrugged. "Wars that drag out are bound to create mistakes at one point or another. Not even Tokugawa Ieyasu is unfaultable."

"I guess." Hashirama sighed. "We have Takeda to thank. The territorial fights are taking Tokugawa's focus off Leaf."

"This is our chance," Madara said. "Let's take it, Hashirama."

"I don't like it. We've never made dirty deals before."

"We don't have another choice. Stop pretend being unimpeachable. You know very well what has to be done, even if both of us don't like it."

"You're talking about sacrificing lives to save even more. And not in direct combat, either."

"And I hate it as much as you do. But we know it has to be done. This is the reason why we put our children through the Academy."

The thing both of them thought but neither of them voiced stood in the room clearly. _It is time this comes to an end. _If only the price wasn't what they both knew it would be.

…

Sometimes he thought of leaving.

The woman he loved would never love him back. And maybe she loved the man who was his rival and best friend and partner all in one – maybe she did not – but either way, it did not matter. It wouldn't change anything. They were trapped in a web of lies of their own making, a net whose strands were so thick and choking they could not disentangle themselves on their own. And maybe him saying something would allow for the only escape the three of them had – he could always just _take_ her, or challenge his partner – but he had grown up knowing war and death and he was so _sick_ of it all. He'd lost family to the whore that was war, family and friends and his innocence and his beliefs. Sometimes he thought he even lost himself.

It was enough to make a man think of betraying his home.

Sometimes he wondered if he really would be able to do it, or if he loved them enough to stay.

…

Vision of the future:

He didn't fit in. He stood out painfully. He knew – even with his limited knowledge and experience at the age of six – that he was a stranger, accepted only because his mother was the daughter of one of the Clan Elders. Minato's hair was bright yellow, his eyes the blue of the sun-kissed sea. He seemed taller than the kids of his age, all of them with dark hair and dark eyes and the small, wind-bent and gnarled stature their fathers had and their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. Sticking out like a sore thumb was the one thing. Being the fruit of a forbidden affair was another. People in this village did not look kindly on adultery, not even when committed outside of marriage.

He stared out over the sea, now knowing what he was looking for.

The expanse of water was endless. His step father and elder brothers had left even before he had awakened. It was something to appreciate: a morning that did not have him suffer under his half-brother's onslaughts, punches and kicks and nasty glances. They didn't like him. They disliked his wheat-yellow hair and his blue eyes, his nimble hands when it came to all kinds of work. And, most of all, they disliked him because he was bright. Minato always had a retort or a quick comment. And despite the fact that he only attended the village school sporadically, he knew enough to correct them. He wasn't aware that he was a prodigy. He just knew his brothers – and the other people – did not like him for what he was.

"Eh, blondie!" A gnarled, muscular man about trice his age rounded in on him, causing Minato to draw back. No such luck. Hard hands grabbed his collar. The man spit onto the street. "Don't run away, son of a dog! There is work for you. Earn your living."

He spent the rest of the day repairing nets. The sharp, stubborn material had made his fingers bleed in the past: now he was used to it. Minato didn't know what _whore_ meant or _bastard._ But he knew one thing. Here is the greatest secret nobody knows: The future Yellow Flash of Hidden Leaf hates the color yellow.

In the evening, he again stood at the shore, gazing across the water. It was not yet a thought, only a half-formed feeling that had taken root in his heart and had started to grow, slowly and delicately like the crimson star-flowers he sometimes found in the dunes far from the oceal: Someone was waiting for him, just beyond the blue waves of the sun-kissed sea.

…

"I'm so glad you're back."

Sarutobi Biwako clung to her husband with the strength of desperation mixed with relief. Hiruzen laughed; a deep, rumbling sound that carried relief as well as exultation. It was what every man felt when he returned to his home safe and sound and the only time the sadness and anger that all of them felt for the comrades they had lost in combat did not manage to overwhelm every other sentiment. On the battle field, they were hardened warriors – at home, they were human.

The same, Hiruzen thought, chuckling, applied to his wife. Biwako was cool and curt whenever out in public but at home she was kind and warm. As if reading his thoughts, she smacked him on the head with her considerable strength and pushed him away roughly at the same time.

"Let me guess: you're hungry," she almost-snapped, reminding him very much of the prickly woman he had married. When he nodded, she started to bustle through the kitchen. "Of course men would not announce their coming-home date just to annoy their wives," she mumbled, just loud enough so he could hear her. "Not being home for weeks on end and then returning without so much as a notice, expecting to be welcomed with open arms and an overflowing table!"

Smiling, he hung his coat onto the rack by the door and stripped of his armor, carefully stacking it in a corner. _She trained you well, _he could hear Homura's sneering voice. And the obligatory noise of pain when Kohane slapped him.

"How are the kids?" Hiruzen asked, stepping behind his wife and taking the knife from her hands. "Let me do this."

She left him to cut the loaf of bread and focused on stirring something deliciously-smelling in a big pot over the stove.

"Yuzuki and Tadahito are fine, there's a lot to do in the hospital but I'm glad she's at least spared from field duty. Tadahito can't wait to graduate to genin, you know him. And Asuma…" She made a gesture with her spoon which caused Hiruzen to turn around. Sometimes he wondered whether it was mothers who possessed this peculiar sense of their children or just women in general but as usual, Biwako was right. From the door, a small face was glancing at him, bright, brown eyes and a shock of light hair that probably would darken with age, just as Hiruzen's had.

"Aren't you asleep yet?" Hiruzen picked up his youngest son, sat down on a chair and lifted him into his lap. The little boy's hair was tousled from sleep but his eyes were wide and awake. "How are you doing?"

"Tada said I am too small to be a genin," Asuma complained, snuggling under his father's arm. "He's mean."

"That's what elder brothers are for," Hiruzen chuckled. "Don't let him get to you. You'll grow, soon."

"Will you teach me to throw a kunai, Daddy? Because I want to fight for Leaf, too, just like you do!"

Over his youngest son's head, he caught the glance Biwako was giving him, and for a silent second they shared the pain of being parents in times of war. Carefully, he stood again, hoisting up the boy.

"Come on, Asuma. I'll bring you to bed."

His wife's thoughts echoed in his mind clearly, in synch with his own. _It is time this comes to an end._

…

"I would die for you," Jiraiya whispered, and it was absolutely not funny or dramatic or romantic. It wasn't anything, Orochimaru thought, because Jiraiya's voice was completely matter-of-fact. His face was white, his hands were calm and his eyes clear. And he was severely injured. Orochimaru knew how badly because he had watched Tsunade's face when she had cut away the last remnants of Jiraiya's tattered flak vest and shirt, he had seen her face lose all its color and terror flare up in her eyes. And now they were here – very possibly at the end of the war – and they were about to lose everything.

_No,_ Orochimaru corrected himself. _We have won. _A considerable distance away from them, behind the thick walls of his fortress, a man had been murdered. In his bedroom Tokugawa Ieyasu, most powerful man in Fire Country and leader of the Five Tairo, was slowly bleeding out on the inside. He probably was dead already. For whatever it was worth, they had learned to kill in those past three years. Without the Daimyo, the driving force behind the war was stopped. What would follow now, Orochimaru knew, were skirmishes. But the war was won.

_To hell with victory._

Jiraiya was dying.

It wasn't fair. Nothing of this was fair, nothing. So many people had lost their lives, so many children had lost their parents and mothers and fathers their children. So many homes had been torn apart. A whole village had been reduced to ashes and dust, a whole clan annihilated, and for what? Orochimaru valued freedom. And he loved his home, his village. People said a lot about him but Orochimaru loved Hidden Leaf and its inhabitants. And he loved his team mates, and now Jiraiya was on the ground in front of him, bleeding to death, and Tsunade was near delirious from the exertion of trying to hold him back – because there was no denying this was a struggle of willpower, not of ability. Jiraiya would die as surely as Orochimaru breathed if not a miracle was to happen _right now_ – and okay so maybe this war was won but what was it worth without the two people that were most important to him? And he knew he would never betray them, no matter how much it hurt. But what was it worth, this revelation in the face of the loss they were going to suffer?

It had been a simple plan. But, as many plans, the simple part was the intriguing part that was most likely to work. And yet as risky as it came. Maybe Fire's Lord had become careless over the war – or simply weary of Leaf – and maybe he just hadn't expected the enemy to be that bold. Sending shinobi on a suicide mission was nothing unheard of but this hadn't been a mission that would have been possible for normal shinobi. Maybe His Lordship just hadn't speculated on Leaf to actually send the _only_ three shinobi that could have pulled it off. _The Sannin._

But they had.

Only Uchiha Orochimaru and his snakes could have made it through the ring of Tokugawa's guards and mercenaries. Only Kasuga Jiraiya could have silenced the ones who noticed them quickly and silently. And only Senju Tsunade could have made it into Tokugawa's private rooms and get close enough to fight him – and kill him. It had taken almost six months of preparation in which Tsunade had infiltrated the castle. It was the oldest trick in the book. Take a kunoichi and make her look pretty and shy and naïve. Don't worry for her state of mind when she has to live alone and without contact in a place everyone would kill her without hesitation if she was exposed. Leave her to attract the target's attention and have her kill him in the middle of the night, preferably when he is at his mentally weakest and too sated to fight too much. Go figure what that meant. Dirty work, dirty hands, in more than one way. Six months, and after days she'd probably been desperate enough to cry herself to sleep, but not far enough gone to send out a call for a retrieval team. She had done it. Orochimaru had lost count of the times Jiraiya and he had been so close to storming the castle to get her out. But it had worked. They had been the only ones who had even the slightest possibility to pull through with this. Jiraiya and Orochimaru had _known_ – as people _knew_ of techniques that were used to kill and children _knew_ how children were created – that Tsunade had been trained in the arts of the kunoichi. To _see_ it was a different thing entirely and as intriguing as it was revolting. Orochimaru could just barely stop himself from breaking down the wall and killing Tokugawa, and he actually stopped Jiraiya from doing it. They were nineteen and far from innocent and _yet._

But the end justified the meanings.

_(Did the meanings justify the end?)_

Senju Tsunade slit Tokugawa Ieyasu's throat after the act. And then, just as she hurriedly got dressed again, a maid slipped into the room and saw her master's weakly twitching corpse. Orochimaru employed a poisoned needle and her scream was silenced within seconds, but it had been enough.

The rest of their flight was a haze of walls and corridors, screaming servants and charging guards, of mercenaries at every corner and edges and corners they hadn't had the time to familiarize themselves with. They ran into groups of warriors more than once – Orochimaru wasn't sure when he'd carried away the wound in his side that now ached painfully but he hadn't even noticed then – and then Tokugawa's son had cornered them, sneering and weapons-bristling, and along him a full platoon of Wind mercenaries. And maybe they still could have made it. Maybe they could have defeated that stupid son-of-a-bitch and made a run for it but behind the next corner waited a gang of Iwa-nin mixed with more Sand shinobi, and Tsunade, who went charging around the corner first, caught their first strike in full swing and went down. And then Jiraiya went berserk and finished off the rest of them. And when they had defeated these enemies and a few more they found themselves on the wall, again surrounded, Tsunade still recovering from the use of the _Hiraishin_, Jiraiya breathing hard and Orochimaru wounded. And they fought – they'd always gone well together, always been able to complement each other during fights and read each other's mind – and Tsunade was weak, Jiraiya was exhausted and Orochimaru was bleeding. Oh, but it was like in the old days – glorious, glorious days – when they were fighting together and loving it, each of them moving in synch with the other, knowing exactly what to do – so when Jiraiya laughed Tsunade grinned, too, and even Orochimaru felt a grim smile split his lips.

And they jumped.

_(Fell.)_

It was winter in Hi no Kuni. The snow piled up into deep trenches on the other side of the castle walls. It softened the fall but nothing else. Still laughing, they tried getting to their feet again and then the hailstorm of kunai and arrows started. Unable to block anything they stumbled away from the castle walls but still got hit. Jiraiya was the last of them – always the last, the slowest, the idiot to take the blame – and not for the first time Orochimaru suspected it was purpose. Simple, utter, _completely idiotic purpose. _Jiraiya, stupidest bastard of all, fell behind in order to shield their retreat and so they fled – Tsunade and Orochimaru leaning on each other, Jiraiya covering them – until they reached the cover of the trees and were out of missile range. But they had no place to go. They knew as well as the enemies in the castle knew.

"Come on, come on, come on," Tsunade chanted under her breath, tears running down her cheeks. Freezing on her skin and leaving glistening tracks. "Jiraiya, don't die on me, I dare you, if you do this to me I swear…"

It was time she accepted the inevitable, Orochimaru thought almost listlessly. She had been going around pretending Jiraiya meant nothing to her for years now. She might have fooled everyone else, including herself, but Orochimaru could see. He could see it as well as he could see that Jiraiya had loved Tsunade from the moment they had met. How else could it be explained that the man who was kind to everyone disliked a man as polite and friendly as Dan? Tsunade loved Jiraiya as much as Orochimaru loved her, as sure as that they were going to die here. It had been a suicide mission from the start.

"Don't die, Jiraiya, I beg you, if you die-"

"I would die for you any time," Jiraiya rasped and smiled at her, his bloody hand gripping hers and stilling her frantic efforts to heal him.

Orochimaru closed his eyes and felt the blood soak out of his side. A hand touched his arm and held tight, and he felt the almost nonexistent trickle of Tsunade's chakra. She connected the two of them, as she had so often, drawing a bridge between him and Jiraiya. Her icy blue chakra was barely existent. It wasn't nearly enough to save them, but it was more than that. It was a love letter written with her own blood.

Nothing pathetic, or even romantic. Just an end.

Three years and one hundred twelve days.


	5. epilogue and come by the highway home

_Epilogue. come by the highway home_

It was spring again.

Senju Hashirama glanced up from his papers long enough to catch a pair of birds gliding over the plaza in front of his window. The soft scent of earth mixed with budding leaves and grass hung in the air. It was spring as Mito would have liked it.

"Stop grinning like an idiot," Madara told him as he entered the room they shared as an office. "It makes me want to punch you."

"Isn't it a beautiful day?" Hashirama smiled widely. He knew his seemingly carefree attitude could piss his old friend off as much as anything else. True to his nature, Madara scowled and dumped a stack of papers on Hashirama's desk.

"Read this and tell me what you think."

Hashirama scanned over the papers. "A restructuration of the genin training plans? And of the team set-up? What's this about?"

"I thought of a few things," was Madara's only comment. "And I know you have, too."

Inwardly, the Senju smiled. It was very much like Madara to make everything sound like it wasn't to his credit when he brought up new plans for the village. As much as they'd been rivals before, Madara disliked to be named as someone who actually _liked_ administrative work. A few points into the paper, Hashirama found something that made him stop.

"_A medic in every team_?" He read off the parchment. "This again."

"It was a good idea and you know that," Madara said. "It's not that easy, of course. Not every genin team will have one member that will feel an affinity to healing. But since teams are re-shuffled often when the members reach chuunin level…"

"What is this supposed to be?" Hashirama asked, putting the paper down and frowning at Madara. "A homage to my granddaughter?"

"No, a child of necessity. And a product of logic." Madara stayed calm. "And speaking of Tsunade… You know they would never have survived if she hadn't been trained as a medic. They only lasted that long because Tsunade could keep them upright, and then they only survived because there was another medic on the SAR team."

"Yes, yes," Hashirama grumbled. "But it will need some serious reorganization of our resources. And besides…"

"I don't care," Madara said rudely. "Just let's get it on its way. We can't let something like that happen again, Hashirama. This is our village, these are our children out there. We have to do everything to protect them. Mito would have wanted it, too."

Hashirama opened and closed his mouth, his eyes going dark for a second. Then, he sighed. "You are right."

Outside, the birds sang.

"They're our children, after all."

…

Vision of the future:

"Mummy! Mummy! Muuuuummy! Hiro's hitting me!"

The voice of the little girl did not carry the tearful sound one expected to hear coming with those words, especially if it was the younger sister complaining about her elder brother badgering her. Instead, it was _loud._ A few passers-by on the street startled in alarm at the voice and the following racket inside the house.

"She's _lying!_ I didn't touch her – Kushina, shut up! Mum, don't believe her, she's just-"

"Silence!"

The voice rang like thunder through the air. Everyone who had been eaves-dropping hastily carried on his or her way, shaking their heads and secretly praying they would never have to deal with those children. Inside the house, the mother looked at both her children, her hands on her hips. She was a small, shapely woman with hair as red as cherries and a finely drawn face. Lines surrounded her eyes, both from laughter and from sadness. She was small – but both her children stood still in front of her as if in front of a jury, their heads hung low in shame.

"What did I tell you, Hiro," the woman lectured. "What did I tell you about these things?"

In one hand she held the blunted kunai, four in total. They looked as if they had been used many a times, a favorite toy to many generations of future Uzushio genin.

"Don't throw kunai in the house," Hiro recited, a lecture often rehearsed. He had the dark hair of his father, with flashes of the Uzumaki red shining through stubbornly.

"And what did I tell you, Kushina?" The woman turned to her younger daughter. Kushina, with the same striking hair as her mother, otherwise resembled her brother like a pea in the pod. They could have been twins had it not been for the obvious difference in age.

"I am not to take away Hiro's kunai," she mumbled, scuffing her feet on the ground. "But-"

"Is there a but?" Their mother asked calmly.

Both shook their heads, mutely.

"Good." The woman smiled. "Now apologize to each other and when you're finished I am sure Grandma Mahiro could use your help in the kitchen. She said something about cake. Would you help her?"

With a chorus of happy yells, both disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. The woman smiled fondly and looked after them. "Mother always says they inherited the Uzumaki genes. Can't see why she'd say that."

In the kitchen, voices sprung up.

"I want to do the stirring, Grandma, please!"

"No, I want to!"

The woman shook her head and went back to her interrupted laundry duty, secretly praying that squabbles like these would be the only major confrontations her beloved children would have to deal with in their very own futures.

…

Jiraiya and Orochimaru waited for Tsunade in front of the hospital.

She saw them from far: two tall men, one dark, one light. Black and white, like her very own fairy-tale princes – only that they didn't live in one. Jiraiya looked pale under his mane of white hair, having only slowly recovered. He'd come out of intensive care a few days ago. And Orochimaru – while always pale – looked worn out and still better. She probably wasn't exactly a beauty to look at, either, Tsunade thought and almost pushed the few strands of her hair that had fallen out of her braid back self-consciously. Especially seeing Jiraiya made her want to run into the opposite direction. This was new, too. While she had been working in the hospital for the past weeks she still had managed to avoid him since he had regained consciousness, even though she had spent every second at his side as long as he'd been in a coma. It had been easy – there had been more than enough other patients to take care of. Now, stubbornness won out and she crossed over to meet them, greeting them with a bright smile.

"Don't do that, Hime," Jiraiya said and pulled a grimace as if his teeth were hurting. "You look like you just ate something nasty."

"Don't listen to him," Orochimaru said and elbowed his friend. "You look good."

_Good_ wasn't the verb she'd used to describe her condition. She'd been working a triple shift, she had last showered sixty-two hours ago, her hair was plastered to her head and her clothes were rumpled. But it was a nice lie. "You look horrible yourselves," she shot back and was relieved to see Jiraiya grin.

"Yeah, six weeks of intensive care can even diminish a natural beauty like mine."

"Believe me, you look better now than ever before," Orochimaru dead-panned.

Tsunade laughed. She couldn't help it: the laughter bubbled up in her stomach and made its way up her throat until it bubbled out like something that had been forced down far too often and only now was released. The feeling that remained was a giddy sense of _happiness._ How strange. She hadn't thought it would be possible to feel anything like it again.

Three years.

Three years of war, three years of fights and combat and battle. She had lost Dan and Nara Mitsuki had lost her husband and little Yuuhi Kurenai had lost her mother, and so many other people in Leaf had lost _someone_. A whole village had been razed. So many people had died. And still, here they were; smiling, laughing, going on. Not as if nothing had ever happened. No, rather as if they could appreciate what they had because they had lost so much. They had fought and struggled onwards and onwards, always searching for a tomorrow that felt like it would never come because peace seemed impossible from where they had been standing.

And now, it was there.

Tsunade wasn't sure where she stood, exactly. What it was with Jiraiya and her, or Orochimaru and them. She wasn't sure what she was to do next – when you weren't fighting a war, what did you do to get from day to day? It felt like the possibilities were endless. She could take out Nawaki for a trip to one of the surrounding villages. Or just sleep one entire weekend. Or just spar with Orochimaru and Jiraiya, just for the sake of sparring, and enjoy the day. She could go, annoy her grandfather at his office. God, she hadn't done that for such a long time. Or she could do something practical, like organizing the medic nin in the village, there was a lot that could be done in the hospital administration and she already was sprouting a million useless and two or three useful ideas. Or…

"Hime," Jiraiya said and she suddenly realized that the nickname she had hated so much wasn't bad when it came from _him._ "Hime, where are your thoughts? Spacing out on us again?"

Jiraiya and Orochimaru were both looking at her, half-weary, half-amused. Pulling herself together, she laughed again, not able to completely suppress the giddiness. She was probably high on soldier pills and adrenaline and the lack of sleep but seeing them up and alive – and _together_ – was a better drug than anything else.

"We're alive," she said, finally realizing how much that meant. "Don't you see? We're _alive._"

They would make it through the next summer, too.

...

..

.

* * *

_A/N:__Storyboard premises._

_i) Orochimaru is neither mad nor evil  
ii) Development of a relationship between Jiraiya and Tsunade, Orochimaru watches  
iii) Mirrored relationships: Hashirama/Mito/Madara vs. Jiraiya/Tsunade/Orochimaru  
iv) Hashirama was never in love with Mito but Madara was  
v) Madara finds peace in Leaf, learns to love it and works alongside Hashirama  
vi) Jiraiya is the odd one out in a team of children of distinguished heritage_

_If there are five names that sound familiar but clearly don't belong into _Naruto_ that may be because I borrowed the names of the members of The Council of Five Elders (Five Tairo) who were supposed to rule Japan until Toyotomi Hideyoshi's son came of age in the 17th century. (Of course he never did because the Elders decided it was a lot cooler to rule themselves.)_

_Orochimaru's birthday is on October 27th_


End file.
